Lynch Pins at Terenure!

Last week I caught up with the Lynch family from Terenure Cricket Club. For those of you who don’t know the Lynch family you must never have stepped into the club! The club is run by a fantastic volunteer system which is the heart and soul of it. The Lynch family are one of many of the families that help out with coaching, committee work, Covid-19 safety duties and also of course play cricket themselves.

I touched base with Madeline Lynch, Youth Co-Ordinator, to talk about youth numbers as I was collating information on youth stats for South Dublin County Council. Even though Terenure CC is a Dublin City County Council sports club, there is a large number of schools from the South Dublin area that feed into their youth section. As it turns out the numbers went up from just 22 kids coming from South Dublin schools in 2019 to 55 children in 2020.

Madeline said, “We had 70 youths registered and most of these took part all season”. One of the experiences coaches at Terenure is Diarmuid Lynch who has worked for Cricket Leinster over a number of years and he was keen to point out that “youth membership grew at a very healthy rate with many children giving cricket a go for the first time and enjoying it enough to stick around!”

Diarmuid explained that the new members weren’t just in one age group, that there were new members on all the Terenure youth teams in both the girls’ and boys’ leagues. They even had to create a completely new timetable to accommodate all the new members wishing to train. Diarmuid is especially appreciative of all “the outstanding volunteer coaches” who helped to accommodate everyone - “to see many smiling faces after every youth session was a joy and for many the summer of 2020 will have to go down as the summer they got hooked on cricket!” says Diarmuid.

Another fantastic achievement for Terenure CC in 2020 was the return of a Terenure XI to the Women’s Leagues. Fleeting appearances have been made by Terenure teams in the leagues since the great teams of the 80’s however despite the best efforts of many they could never manage to stay in the leagues for a significant period of time. This was largely down to a lack of girls coming though the youth section as there were no girl’s teams. This has changed dramatically with Terenure now having the girl’s teams they were crying out for and means there is now a natural progression from youth’s cricket to adult cricket for the girls who play without having to play on boy’s teams. A special mention must be given to Isobel Joyce for all the help she has given in the formation of this team and of course to the committed troupe of coaches who provide so much assistance to the players.

Terenure also had an encouraging year for their men’s teams, fielding a 4^th XI in the league for the first time in a number of years. All teams tasted both success and defeat over the course of the season with the 3^rd XI very unfortunately only tasting defeat in the Final of the Ed Sports Russell Court trophy. A feature of the season was also the number of players both young and old who had their first taste of men’s cricket in Terenure at all levels. These debutants contributed well with bat, ball and in the field and the club looks forward to seeing them back in Terenure colours in 2021.

Diarmuid is especially keen to mention a notable milestone for club stalwart, John Murray, who recorded the season’s personal highlight with figures of 5 wickets for just 6 runs!

The club has exciting plans for the 2021 season as it looks to sustain its recent successes across youth, women’s and open cricket whilst also upgrading its infrastructure with plans in-place for new nets subject to grant approval – all great progress despite the challenging times.